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In British Columbia, there’s a good news story about the news

Hidden by gloomy tales of the decline of North America’s news media is a success story in southwestern British Columbia. Here, a cluster of digital outlets have flowered by paying for top notch investigative and solutions-focused reporting. They are forging new business models and training the next wave of journalists.

Hidden by gloomy tales of the decline of North America’s news media is a success story in southwestern British Columbia.

Here, a cluster of digital outlets have flowered by paying for top notch investigative and solutions-focused reporting. They are forging new business models and training the next wave of journalists.

Taken together, they form a news media ecosystem in which surviving means competing but also collaborating. Yes, each vies to break stories and attract money. But they also sometimes republish each other’s pieces, pool resources or team up.

It’s a remarkable list, representing millions of dollars in journalism budgets, a combined staff larger than the Vancouver Sun-Province reporter pool, numerous major awards, a steady stream of high-impact work, and millions of page views per month.

Some of the big ground broken in this little region:

The Tyee launched the 100-Mile Diet, helping spark the local food movement, and has reported earlyand continuouslyon fixing the housing affordability crisis. With no paywall, it’s nearly majority reader supported, with some philanthropic funding plus investment from a labour-tied fund.

The National Observer’s energy sector investigations have rockedOttawa and forced resignations. It mixes revenues from paywall subscribers, philanthropies and other sources.

Discourse Media, which specializes in deeply reported projects it terms “collaborative”, is now offeringits readers a chance to co-own the company as it aggressively pursues growth.

The non-profit Global Reporting Centre, whose mission is to innovate how global journalism is practiced and cover neglected issues worldwide, has crowdsourced storytellersto document the rise of xenophobia.

Hakai Magazine, backed by the Tula Foundation and tied to Hakai Institute, covers coastal science, ecology and communities. It pays top rates for stories from around the world, and has an in-house team producing frequently viral videos.

A single video interview about Site C dam publishedby non-profit DeSmog Canada drew 1.6 million views. It mixes funding from readers and philanthropies.

While these orgs aren’t muscling aside B.C. megafauna like the CBC, Globe and Mail, Postmedia and Huffington Post, they serve as “tip sheets” for those newsrooms, who often pick up their stories and run their own versions. In this way the smaller fry contribute to the public conversation by means rarely highlighted.

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